Dark Heart (Husk)

by Russell Kirkpatrick

She smiled again at the man. He was practically bald, his teeth were crooked and his breath smelled bad, but Lenares found him interesting. Almost a kindred mind.

  ‘I, too, am the only expert left,’ she said. ‘The last cosmographer. Do they listen to you? They don’t listen to me.’

  ‘Oh, they listen to me all right, yes indeed. They don’t listen, they end up smeared all over the mine. They’ve learned to listen, oh yes.’

  ‘They don’t listen to me,’ Lenares repeated. ‘And many people have already died because of it.’

  ‘I’ll listen to you, yes, I’ll listen,’ Olifa said. ‘I always listen. There is so much to learn.’

  A kindred mind indeed. He didn’t always agree with her, but he listened. More than Dryman or Captain Duon did.

  ‘So let me tell you about the special stone,’ Olifa said, pleased by her interest. ‘It is very rare, oh my, and there are many theories as to what makes it form. My own personal belief is that it needs extreme heat and pressure to be created, so, despite the ridicule of my peers, I suggested the stone was born of meteorites, yes indeed I did.’

  ‘Meteorites? Fireballs?’

  ‘Indeed,’ he said, his eyebrows raised.

  ‘You didn’t think I’d know what a fireball was, did you. I told you, I saw one.’

  ‘You did, Lenares, and I apologise, yes I do. It was not your seeing the fireball I doubted, for, as I am about to tell you, I saw it too. No, it is the method of creation. Oh my, meteorites are falling stars, and they come from beyond the walls of the world—’

  ‘No, they do not,’ Lenares said. ‘Nothing gets through the worldwall—well, almost nothing, and certainly not meteorites.’

  ‘I’m not going to argue with you, girl, oh no, because it doesn’t matter. I investigated the site of the fireball north of Raceme just after it fell, yes I did, I spent a week and a day digging where I calculated the stone would be, and I found the special stone.’ He smiled, and drew a small glass vial out of a pocket in his tunic. ‘Oh my. There it is, genuine huanu stone, oh yes. Olifa was right.’

  ‘It’s very small,’ Lenares said.

  ‘I told you it was. But powerful all the same. With it—’

  ‘I know what it does,’ she said, and watched as his eyes opened wide in surprise—though not as surprised as she had expected. ‘It stops magic. Absorbs magic. But I’ve seen a much bigger huanu stone. I’ve held a piece’—she looked closely at the stone—‘four hundred and twenty-six times the volume of the one in your glass container.’

  He nodded, not at all surprised by this.

  ‘You knew,’ she said. ‘You know Noetos and his huanu stone, don’t you?’

  ‘Noetos? Oh yes, indeed. Oh my. Famous, he is. Famous, but an angry man. I’m surprised he let you hold the stone, my dear, oh yes. But with this stone I will also be famous,’ he crowed. ‘Oh my, the most famous alchemist in the world. And the richest. No more to be stuck down filthy mines with filthy miners.’

  ‘So where are you taking it?’

  ‘Why, to its rightful owner, oh yes,’ the mad alchemist replied. ‘The Undying Man of Bhrudwo, our rightful Emperor. And if he is prepared to pay what it is worth, he can have it.’

  ‘And if not?’

  ‘Well, there’s not much he can do, is there, no indeed, since the huanu stone negates magic while in my possession.’

  ‘I am going north also,’ she confessed, ‘but I will not travel all the way with you. I would like to rejoin my companions.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said grandly. ‘Any time you want to leave, all you have to do is step off the boat. Now, Lenares, you’re tired and sore, so you are. Why don’t you take some rest? I’ll keep this boat going north, oh yes I will.’

  Even as Lenares lay back in the bow of the boat, her head still above the gunwale, her numbers showed hidden plans in the man. Unseen dangers. Treachery against Noetos, against the Undying Man. She would keep a careful eye on him when next she woke.

  She awoke in a panic. The boat was being tossed about and something dark and heavy had landed on top of her, crushing her already painful rib. A cloth had been pressed against her eyes and there was a fumbling at her tunic.

  ‘What?’ she cried, and received a sharp blow in the mouth. Something was attacking her. She went to cry out and tasted blood. The boat continued its frenzied rocking.

  ‘Olifa! Something—’

  The cloth slipped enough for her to see. The weight on her chest was Olifa himself, his naked torso pinning hers to the hull. It was his hand fumbling with her tunic. Her shocked brain took a moment longer to assemble the obvious explanation.

  ‘No! Don’t touch me!’ she screamed, and began to twist and jerk underneath him, trying to fetch him a blow with her knees.

  ‘Stop fighting,’ he said, already panting. ‘You have to pay me for passage, oh yes, and pay me you will, in coin of my choosing.’

  ‘Nobody touches me,’ she snarled, struggling to free herself. ‘Not without my permission.’ But though he was a small man, and very old, he was tough and wiry. A miner, she thought. Miners are strong and I am weak.

  ‘You boarded my boat,’ the man said. ‘That’s permission enough in my book, oh yes.’

  His breath was hot and foul on her neck. With one hand he unfastened his breeches, letting them slide down his scrawny legs, exposing his worm.

  Lenares closed her eyes and twisted her head away. He was too strong for her; she didn’t want to see what he was about to do. She had wanted Torve to do this to her, she still did, but it was Torve she wanted, not the act alone, and this man was stealing and hurting. His horrible worm touched her leg and she screamed, involuntarily opening her eyes as the scream ended.

  And looked straight into the eye of an enormous fish.

  Take hold of the boat, little Lenares, came the Daughter’s voice, though weakly, as though from a great distance, and full of pain.

  Lenares clamped her arm under the bow seat, and the massive eye vanished.

  ‘You’ll enjoy it,’ Olifa said, fondling her. ‘Women always enjoy it—’

  A great weight crashed into the bottom and side of the boat, lifting it up and out of the water. Lenares held fast, managing to wedge one of her feet under the stern seat, but Olifa was not so lucky. He grabbed at something, anything, which turned out to be Lenares, but she shook him off. The boat thumped back down into the water with a splash, and the man was no longer in it.

  Lenares got to her knees and looked for a weapon. Under the stern seat was a pack, with a knife strapped to the back: she snatched at it and missed, then grabbed it on the second attempt. She stood, making the boat rock from side to side, and searched the water for Olifa.

  Nothing.

  She wasn’t letting go of the knife in her right hand, so she began to do up her tunic with her left, but couldn’t manage it, so unnerved and fumble-fingered his attack had left her. Why? What right did he have? And what good was cleverness if it could be defeated by mere strength? She was angry at Olifa for betraying her, at herself for being so weak, and at the Daughter for saving her.

  Where was the big fish?

  A splash beside the boat made her scream. A hand reached out of the water and grabbed the gunwale, tipping the boat alarmingly. She sat down with a squeal. A head followed the hand.

  ‘Lenares, Lenares,’ the miner said, spitting out water, ‘pull me back into the boat.’

  No please, no sorry, no promises not to do it again.

  ‘Why should I? You frightened me. You were going to hurt me.’

  ‘I can’t get my boots off, no,’ he said. ‘They are miner’s boots with steel toecaps, and they will pull me down, yes, down to drown. You don’t want me to drown, oh no. Who will guide you back to your friends? Who will help with the boat? Only Olifa, oh yes.’

  ‘Yes, I do. I do want you to drown. Drown, mister.’

  ‘It’s my boat.’

  The worst thing he could have said.

  ‘It was my body!’ Lenares screamed
, and brandished the knife.

  Behind Olifa the big fish raised its head out of the water and opened its mouth, revealing two rows of saw-sharp teeth. Run your knife along his knuckles, the Daughter said. It will make him let go. The cut doesn’t have to be deep. If you don’t, he’ll climb back in and do worse things to you.

  Lenares nodded to the fish, took her knife, looked Olifa in the eye—more than he’d done to her, with his cloth over her face—and ran the blade briskly across the tops of his fingers.

  ‘Aaah, girl, what are you doing?’

  ‘Making you let go. So let go, or I’ll chop your fingers right off.’

  ‘You can’t do this to me. I have the huanu stone!’

  ‘I’m not magical,’ she said. ‘Not strong either, only clever. So your stone avails you nothing. Let go.’

  She ran the knife across his fingers again, more forcefully this time, raising blood. Still he clung to the boat.

  ‘There’s something in the water,’ the man said, his voice shaking.

  The fish had lowered its head under the surface, but it wouldn’t be far away. In fact, there was a long black shadow nearby. He could probably see it.

  ‘Swim to shore, you can make it,’ Lenares said.

  He made no move to obey her.

  ‘I warned you.’

  She stabbed the knife towards his hand. He let go of the boat just in time and she missed his fingers. The blade thunked into the gunwale. Immediately the man began to drift backwards—only relative to the boat, Lenares told herself.

  ‘Swim!’ she shouted to him.

  He dog-paddled furiously, trying to stay above water, all the while calling her vile names.

  The fish raised its head directly behind him.

  Don’t look, little Lenares.

  Olifa noticed she was looking beyond him, turned his head, saw the fish and shrieked in a high-pitched voice.

  We wait until beyond range of the magic-killer in your boat, the Daughter said. Then we strike.

  ‘No, Lenares! Come back, I beg of you!’

  Who could resist such a plea? She didn’t want him eaten by the Daughter-fish. Now she had the knife, what could he do? She put a hand to the tiller.

  The water around the miner erupted. Six fish, each as big as the first, formed a circle—a hole—around the frantic man, who uttered one last cry before the creatures lunged. A frenzy of thrashing, water bubbling and boiling, then turning red. One or two things bobbed to the surface. Bits of meat. A boot with no toe.

  And now I really do have to recuperate, said the Daughter. And digest everything that has happened today. Laughter, then silence.

  QUEEN

  CHAPTER 15

  CONAL GREATHEART

  THE DHAURIAN ATTIRE HAD been a good idea in Dhauria, but a fortnight of warm summer rain had rendered Stella’s robes practically unusable. She sighed and rubbed her clammy hands on the wet fabric. The garment had been practical and comfortable in the hot westerly winds that swept over Ikhnos, but then the humid southerlies rolled in, bringing low cloud and persistent drizzle that no clothes, let alone a flimsy robe, could keep out for long.

  Surprisingly, it was Robal who called the halt and sought the nearest town. His salt-and-pepper whiskers, now a proper beard, dripped rainwater onto his sodden robe: he looked ridiculous and he knew it.

  ‘We’re practically begging to be robbed,’ he said, explaining his choice of road. ‘Not to mention the chafing. At least my trousers were waterproof. And,’ he added grimly, ‘I want to be rid of this red stain.’

  ‘Might be horses here,’ said Stella. ‘And they might even be willing to sell them.’

  ‘We are hardly going to be set upon by thieves,’ Heredrew said, ignoring Stella’s jibe. His mood, never bright, had descended into barely controlled fury at their enforced walk. He couldn’t even use the blue fire to communicate with Andratan, he said, for fear it would be wrested from him by the gods. Robal had laughed at that, pointing out the fable in which men steal fire from the gods, but Heredrew had not shared the humour. He’d wondered aloud how much longer his Maghdi Dasht castellan would wait without communication before annexing the keep and kingdom both, assuming his master had somehow perished. Stella had privately wished the castellan good fortune, but had been prudent enough not to mention this sentiment to Heredrew.

  The Undying Man’s hands twitched as he spoke. Probably wishing someone would set upon them.

  ‘Perhaps in this town we’ll find someone who acknowledges Andratan’s authority sufficiently to give us horses,’ Conal said brightly, an innocent smile playing on his lips.

  Heredrew’s other sore point neatly targeted. He had admitted to his companions that the level of submission to his authority was far lower than he had imagined; certainly far lower than he’d been led to believe by the Ikhnos factors. He had invoked the Seal of Andratan in every town and village they had passed through, and at only one place had the locals been obliging enough to sell—sell, not give!—them a weary pony and wearier dray, to allow Phemanderac an easier passage. The sorcerer had very nearly decided to reveal his identity in one small town, a few days north of Foulwater, where his seal was met with scorn and outright hostility. Stella had been able to persuade him to stay his hand, though she herself had been incensed that night when catching the cook urinating in their stew. She had not objected to the beating Robal had given the man, and had held a drawn sword when Heredrew ordered the villagers assemble and told them their days of disrespect and ease were over. They would respect the Seal of Andratan, or someone would be sent to teach them respect.

  Heredrew turned his head slightly towards the priest. ‘Perhaps in this town we’ll find someone sufficiently desperate to take you off our hands. A stablemaster, perhaps?’ He raised an eyebrow to Stella. ‘How much do you think we would have to pay to have him taken on as an apprentice?’

  ‘We might get the forequarters of a horse in exchange,’ said Robal, deliberately loud enough for the priest to hear.

  ‘Hindquarters,’ Heredrew corrected, drawing a snort of laughter from the guardsman.

  Men make easy friends and even easier enemies, Stella reflected as she followed Heredrew and Robal, her self-appointed guardians, in their approach to the town gate. Behind her Kilfor and his father led the dray. Phemanderac and Moralye rode inside it. Women are much more careful with their trust.

  The rain doubled in intensity as the Falthans sheltered under the stone arch. Farmer’s Flat, the carved words on the keystone told them. Stella caught a whiff of sulphur as they waited for Robal to negotiate their entrance. Towns, just like people, had their unique odours; this was less pleasant than most. She wondered what they manufactured here that required such a foul chemical.

  ‘Farmer’s Flat? Not what I called it last time I was here,’ Heredrew said.

  ‘Oh?’ Conal turned to face him. ‘Stinkpit, perhaps? Smelltown? Dungheap? Did you curse it because some peasant forgot to tug his forelock? Or perhaps because the women were less than accommodating?’

  Heredrew tilted his head towards Stella, but she was a little too slow in realising he was requesting her permission. A moment later his hand flicked out and he fetched Conal a brutal slap across the cheek. Struck, Stella thought, by a hand that is not there.

  ‘And so the mighty Undying Man answers his critics,’ the priest said, spitting out blood and phlegm.

  ‘No, I would normally bring in experts to give you answer,’ Heredrew said equably. ‘And, believe me, they are expert. Autocracy depends on the enforcement of discipline, as I’m sure your Archpriest has demonstrated.’

  ‘He has you there.’ Stella carefully kept any sympathy out of her voice: for a priest, Conal had been remarkably unrepentant about his actions in Dhauria. She had fought hard to prevent Heredrew slaying the man; had bargained her cooperation in the Undying Man’s attempt to save the world—if indeed that was what he was doing, and his altruism was not a front for something more nefarious—to win Conal’s life. Bitterness
and gall had been her reward. Conal now seemed to despise her as much as he had once been infatuated with her, convinced she had been collaborating with the Enemy of Faltha from the start. A natural reaction, she supposed, but one a priest ought to be above, or at least recognise for what it was.

  Not this fellow. He was stamped with the same mark as his master, the Archpriest, who had tried to capture and interrogate her for the crime of having been captured by the Undying Man during the Falthan War.

  And this Conal was the Archpriest in miniature. Best to remember that. There was only so far this man could be pushed before he pushed back; and, despite his lack of magical power, he had already proved—twice—that he was capable of extraordinary feats. Once to save her; once to kill her. The man bore close watching.

  The Falthans were admitted to the town of Farmer’s Flat, the odd smell commented on by no one, out of politeness. Once inside the walls Moralye took the lead. She had proved time and again her useful talent for identifying the friendliest people in town, the most pleasant and least expensive lodgings. If anyone could secure horseflesh, she was that one. It was a little late in the afternoon for a visit to the stables, so she led them down a street she had never previously seen, in a land she had never been in before, trusting some obscure instinct to reveal a place to eat and stay the night.

  Stella admired the woman immensely. Moralye had been jerked out of her world by forces she had read about but never expected to experience; had been confronted with the legendary bogeyman of her culture, yet had set to with vigour to understand what had happened; and, even more commendable, to make herself useful. Phemanderac professed himself delighted with her, and Stella had to agree.

  Within minutes Moralye had engaged a group of young women in conversation. Less than two months in a strange land and she could converse like a native: the sharpest mind of them all, no question. Her intelligence was frightening. But the formidable analytical mind was hidden now as she laughed and giggled with the local women, words and gestures describing cloth and shape and colour, a whirling exchange too fast for Stella to follow. The body does not age, she acknowledged, but the mind still atrophies. What would she be like in a thousand years? How had Kannwar kept his mind lively?